In her new book, Chinese Language in Law, a sequel to her earlier work, Chinese Law: A Language Perspective, Deborah Cao explores some of the dilemmas and idiosyncrasies of the Chinese language used in the legal context, analysing linguistic matters in both monolingual Chinese contexts and cross-linguistically when English and Chinese are compared. She investigates the linguistic and cultural landscape by examining several keywords and linguistic practices associated with Chinese law, arguing the book's overarching theme: that language matters. Beneath this unifying theme, individual chapters are relatively independent as they each deal with different topics and draw on her previously published articles.

The book is composed of seven chapters. In chapter one, Cao outlines the themes and background of the book, and problematizes the main issues to be tackled, as well as some challenges and areas that have been neglected in the study of Chinese law. The second chapter focuses on examination of the key characters 法 (fa, law), 刑 (xing, punishment, criminal law) and 律 (lü, statutes). The author traces the origin and the evolution of the core meanings of these characters in order to assist our understanding of the developing conception and functioning of law in contemporary Chinese society. In chapter three, Cao deals with problems in translation of legal words between English and Chinese and the manipulation of language in the process, using as an example the translation into English of Chinese institutional terms such as 衙门 yamen from imperial China. A point is made of comparing Chinese yi with English “justice,” in order to provide implications for cross-cultural legal communication. Chapter four examines the key word yuan 冤 and associated words, in terms of its classical and modern usage. In chapter five, the author concentrates on her argument that quanli 权利, a term introduced from the West, is not identical to “rights,” because classical Chinese did not have a word corresponding to the English “rights” and traditional Chinese culture did not have a corresponding concept. The next chapter discusses legal speech acts, with a focus on a description of illocutionary forces in legislative texts in Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan, as well as the legal performative modal verbs in their legislation, examining their similarities and differences. The final chapter addresses the issue of linguistic uncertainty in Chinese legislative language. Owing to some inherent linguistic features, Cao concludes that Chinese legal language tends to be more ambiguous than English.

As the overarching theme may appear too general or even almost universally applicable, the author further instantiates it in the respective chapters with the following supporting arguments:

1. (1) to understand Chinese society and law, “we need to understand the rich and idiosyncratic Chinese language and cultural traditions, and the legal and political context and subtext. We also need to be cognizant of the tension and interaction between legal norms and cultural and linguistic values” (p. 11);

2. (2) careful use of language and choice of words are particularly important to law (p. 3);

3. (3) legal keywords such as quanli (权利, or “rights” in English) are especially worthy of attention (p. 6);

4. (4) we should be wary of the dominance of English and its legal language as default in translating and commenting on Chinese law, especially imperial Chinese law, as the tendency to acculturate (that is, making words conform to the culture of the language being translated into, here making Chinese law and traditional legal culture sound like Western law) can misrepresent that law and culture (p. 8);

5. (5) Chinese legal language is more ambiguous than its English counterpart, due to both the inherent linguistic nature of Chinese and the manipulative use of the language. This is idiosyncratic of the Chinese legal language.

While convincing in, by and among themselves, these arguments contribute in their own ways to the overarching theme of the book. The analysis is coherent, in-depth and hence of high quality. Several points are worthy of particular attention and comment here. First, rather than talking about the Chinese language and law in a general way, Cao is prudent in focusing on some key Chinese words associated with law and her selections (such as quanli /right) are indeed very pertinent. Analysis and discussion of these keywords helps to illustrate how law and the related concepts were or are conceived in China or in the Chinese language. Second, her analysis of the hazards of translation into English of the some of the most important legal words and concepts is of special significance in cross-legal system communication, because these concepts do not carry the same connotations, and so domestication in translation will often be misleading. Cao also relates much of her discussion of the key legal words to imperial Chinese legal culture, as “an understanding of China's legal tradition and culture – especially its language – can teach us much about China today and not enough attention has been paid to the language associated with law” (p. 10).

The data and examples Cao draws upon for analysis of certain keywords (such as yuan) or linguistics acts (such as bixu/xu; yingdang/ying) come either from present Chinese code laws or from reliable media in mainland China or Taiwan, and hence the sources for her theoretical illustration are authoritative and reliable. Cao's book is essentially a qualitative research enterprise. However, if she were to support her arguments with additional quantitative analysis, they would be even more convincing.

The potential audience for the book includes scholars or students in the fields of law, linguistics, sociology or anthropology, especially those interested in Chinese law, as well as translators or interpreters. Certain chapters can serve as teaching material, for example chapter three on the comparison and translation of keywords could be used for translation and comparative law instruction, while chapter six might be included in forensic linguistics or pragmatics classes, and chapter seven in teaching of philosophy of law or jurisprudence.

To conclude, China has a unique, rich and fascinating legal tradition that is worthy of scholarly attention in order to understand what is going on legally in China today. China may not be a country of the rule of law at present, but it is moving steadily towards it despite obstacles. The kind of linguistic analysis and examination of Chinese law by Deborah Cao contained in this book will no doubt help facilitate the process, because language does matter.